Loop Head Lighthouse

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Perched 90m above the Atlantic Ocean, Loop Head lighthouse in west Clare has stood guard over this spectacular promontory for over 340 years.

Loop Head Lighthouse overlooks the Atlantic Ocean in west Clare as it has done for over 3409 years. The lighthouse station is the major landmark on the northern shore of the Shannon River. Its cliff top position affords 90m high views of the sea down to Kerry Head and Dingle across the Shannon and up the Clare coast and to the Cliffs of Moher in the north.

The first lighthouse on Loop Head was one of four known Irish stone vaulted cottage type lights built about 1670. These cottages accommodated the light keeper and his family in two or three rooms and had an internal stone stairway between two of the rooms leading up to a platform on the roof where a coal burning brazier or chauffer was positioned. Part of the old cottage with its battered outside wall can still be seen near the light keepers dwellings.

The lighthouse is open to the public daily between May and August, from 10am to 5.30pm, and at weekends in March and April. Visitors can take a guided tour up the tower and go out onto the balcony, from where, weather permitting, you can see south as far as the Blasket Islands and north to the Twelve Pins in Connemara.

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